A couple may have taken their passion for Fifty Shades of Grey a little too far.Steven Lock was charged with sexual assault after a tryst with a woman went terribly wrong. But Lock defended himself, claiming he and his lover had signed a "sex slave contract" -- just like Ana and Christian did! He admitted they were trying to copy a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey.

So. You probably want all the sordid details. Well all right then. According to testimony, the woman got a tattoo reading, "Property of Steven Lock." She says when she showed it to him, he disapproved of the design and, well, punished her. Lock claims, "It was supposed to be kinky fun, I didn't want her to cry."

Oh it's all fun and kinky games until someone cries, right?

Lock reportedly tied a rope around his lover's neck and beat her with a rope for about 15 seconds. His lover claims he hit her so hard she could hear the rope whistling and she screamed. Lock said in court that if she'd remembered to say the safety word ("red"), he would have stopped -- but she'd forgotten it. He says he eventually caught on that it was not-so-consensual (was it the screaming???) and stopped.

For her part, the woman acknowledged she consented to some roleplay, but did not expect it to get quite so rough. "I knew what was coming, but I didn't know he was going to use his whole force and whack me with it [the rope]." After the attack/tryst/whatever, she texted a friend to say, "He's got me chained up like a dog, whipping the shit out of me."

Anyway, Steven Lock got off -- I mean, was found not guilty. But anyway, the point is, because he convinced the court that he believed the beating was consensual, and because he did stop when he realized it wasn't, the jury decided it wasn't assault. Here's how his lawyer put it: "Is this an assault any more than a mistimed tackle in football?" I'm sorry sir, are you comparing forcefully whipping a woman with a freaking football tackle?!? Are you actually doing that? Really?!? Stand back while my head explodes!

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(Hey look, I just made up a new emoticon.) Okay, I've calmed down now. I guess I'm a little unsettled over this case. I mean, how do you even define "consensual" when you're playing Fifty Shades? This case just gives me the creeps.